Palworld, the Pokémon-like game that lets you arm your creatures with machine guns, put them to work in factories, or just eat them, launches on Steam next week

Palworld is the game that asks the disturbing yet fundamentally sensible question: What if Team Rocket had access to a large cache of HK416s and maybe some M72 LAW rockets? After all, pulling little monsters out of your pocket and making them fight might be cute but if you’re serious about getting things done, hardware helps, right? 

And also, keeping cute creatures stuffed inside tiny cages until you want to force one into mortal combat for your amusement isn’t “cute” at all, it’s pretty awful by any measure. But I digress: The point of all this is that Palworld is finally set to launch into early access on Steam on January 19.